Robots Of The Future Powered By C++

By Zach Walton
Expert Author
Article Date: November 2, 2012

Developers and programmers use a variety of programming languages to get things done. C++ is one of the more complicated languages to learn, but its use can lead to some pretty amazing applications. For instance, the language is being used to power the dancing moves of one of the world’s most advanced robots- the CHARLI.

CHARLI was built by a team of researchers at Virginia Tech who wanted to develop “a research platform to study bipedal walking and autonomous behaviors for humanoid robots.” Such a task requires top of the line mechanical engineering as well as the programming required to make it all work.

For fun, the researchers decided to program some dance moves for CHARLI-2. Perhaps riding on the song’s success, they chose PSY’s Korean hit Gangnam Style. CHARLI-2’s performance isn’t an exact replication, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

For those interested in programming for robotics, there are a number of open source projects currently available. One of the more popular is OpenRAVE which focuses on “motion planning algorithms in real-world robotics applications.” It’s mostly used for arm movements, but you can still have a crazy dance party with just a robot’s arms.

It may not help your robot dance, but here’s some other open source C++ development platforms for robotics – Urbi and Orocos.